Don't Let the Wind Follow
by Strike To Incinerate
Summary: Kasuga was not always destined to be the bodyguard and spy for Uesugi Kenshin. Once upon a time, she was a princess on the island of Shikoku. An attack on her family's clan ended their rule, and landed her in training to be a shinobi. Kasuga x Sasuke.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: _KasuSasu has recently become one of my favorite pairings... due to all of the fanart of them. It's adorable. And he loves her so much more than Kenshin does. Kasuga's love for Kenshin just seems so... shallow. And the anime is really vague about whether or not Kasuga is really Sasuke's fiancee, who she worked for before switching to Kenshin's side, where she came from, any of it... so I made up some stuff. And decided to write it down. Did research for this, too. Historical accuracy, hell yeah. So before you ask, yes, every place mentioned is a prefecture, yes it did belong to those people, and yes, those relationships are accurate. Well, uh. Aside from the shit about ninjas. But even that was researched._

* * *

**Don't Let The Wind Follow**  
**Chapter One - Potential**

* * *

Kasuga watched the Sanuki prefecture fall to the Chosokabe clan of Tosa. The land her father's clan had ruled for generations, the land that was supposed to go to the man her older sister would marry... stolen. She could smell the smoke. Hear the footsteps. Her heart hammering in her chest. She was silent only because fear had stolen her voice, deathly still because it had also taken her ability to move.

"There's supposed to be two of them."

"It's just a little girl. Leave it."

"I don't want her to see her parents like that..."

"Don't be softhearted. They went out with honor."

"... yeah."

"Don't worry about the kid, she'll run out when the fire reaches where ever she is."

Kasuga felt some of the ability to move return to her hand as she gripped the kodachi her mother had given to her. If they find you, her mother said, don't let them disgrace you before you die.

Tears stung her eyes. Her mother had a wakizashi just like this... the family crest engraved on the handle in gold. It had already been unsheathed. Her father had one, too. Her sister had a kodachi, but it was more ornate, a symbol of her status as the heir. Kasuga's was rather plain... Sayaka was 10. Kasuga was only 7, but still... her mother's warning rung true. This was what was expected of her, to die with grace and dignity and honor.

She couldn't do it.

Through the screen door of the closet, she could see the blob-like shapes of men getting further away. She allowed herself to breathe again, her shaky little hand ever so slowly pushing the screen aside.

She couldn't die with grace, with dignity, with honor. Her selfish mind only thought of revenge, that her family's lives were worth at least one of theirs. She pushed herself to her feet, her young heart hardening at the backs of the men who thought they could smoke her out and truly take everything from her.

Her blade would be stained with her own blood, but not before theirs.

Not before theirs.

Her footsteps were soft and slow. There was only the knife in her hand. The warm handle and the sharp blade and the promises it made.

One of them glanced back, as if they could feel her following them. She leaped for the other, but she found herself grabbed by the obi that held her kimono closed, picked up. The other broke her grip on the kodachi, with a grin. His eyes were covered by a black mask, there were red markings in paint on his face... he was dressed lightly, a single sword on his back and kunai strapped to his waist.

A shinobi.

She struggled, but she was so small, she was always a little smaller than other kids her age. She was so much smaller than these shinobi.

"Shit, I didn't even hear her."

"She's really quiet."

Kasuga just glared at them. She let her eyes speak her hate.

"You're the little one, aren't you?" the shinobi without markings on his face asked. He was dressed in a strange green print, a metal mask framing his face and keeping it back. He tucked her under one arm as they walked into the hall. She could see the flames licking at one end, the other still seemed clear... they walked past the sitting room, she could a stain on the shoji screen door. Red so dark it was almost brown. The tears spilled down her cheeks. That was the last place she had seen her parents. Where they'd told her and Sayaka to take the knives, to hide, to die with honor when they were found.

"What're you thinking, Sarutobi?" the shinobi in black and white asked.

"She's about Sasuke and Kotaro's age."

"So?"

"Thinking about keeping her if the Chosokabe don't want her."

"Keep her? Why the fuck would you keep her? The last thing Sasuke and Kotaro need is a little girlfriend."

"She's got good instincts. You can't teach a shinobi that. Besides, I don't like the thought of the Chosokabe keeping her."

"Because she's about the same age as Chosokabe's heir?"

"She just lost her parents. She doesn't need to be told she'll be some bratty son of a pirate's sex slave."

Kasuga's face went pale.

"So she should be a shinobi instead? That's a lot better."

Sarutobi sighed. "Yeah, it's better."

"We're not keeping her. Besides, she'd be too behind on her training, the girls start younger than the boys do because they mature faster."

"We'll have Sasuke and Kotaro catch her up, between the two of them, they'll get her in shape."

"Sarutobi, NO. We're not putting stress on them because you want to make some impulse purchase of a daughter."

"Go to hell, Fuuma, she's a kid. She's got nothing but her potential, and for little orphaned girls, that doesn't mean shit, but for a shinobi, it could mean everything. She's coming with us."

"If the Chosokabe don't want her."

Sarutobi was quiet for a moment, then mumbled, "Yeah."

Fuuma shook his head.

* * *

She'd been dressed in a pretty purple silk kimono, her long blond hair piled on top of her head and pinned with a flower ornament. She could feel the strings of beads brushing against her cheek, but she was silent as the grave.

Everything had been a blur, the ninjas brought her to Tosa, some women that she couldn't tell apart aside from the fuzzy blobs of color that were their kimonos, dressed her up.

Now she was alone. Waiting.

It wasn't unlike that closet. Instead of waiting for the shinobi to find her and kill her, she was waiting for Lord Chosokabe and his son to come and decide which life she would have. A lord's concubine or a clan's shinobi. Either path was indentured servitude, but one was in the shadows with a name that didn't matter, and the other was on a pedestal with a name that couldn't be bothered to remember. Her body would belong to someone either way, but would it be to speak lies of love or loyalty?

The door opened and the lord stepped in, his son at his side. The boy had a strange appearance, white hair like snow that stuck straight up, and sharp blue eyes. He looked about her own age, maybe a little older...

"Motochika," Lord Chosokabe began. Kasuga held her breath, but Motochika just looked bored. "Do you like her?"

Motochika crossed his arms over his chest. "HELL NO. I thought you said she was the pretty one."

"She is the pretty one, she has such fair skin and fine hair like gold..."

"GROSS. Her head looks like that giant sun stupid Motonari prays to. I thought you meant the one with hair like fire!" Motochika complained. Kasuga looked down. "She isn't pretty at all. Where's the pretty one?"

"Motochika, she died."

"YEAH RIGHT. You just can't find her... you're lame. I want the pretty one. Did stupid Motonari get the pretty one?"

"No, Motochika..."

"Tell him I'll trade, he can have the ugly sun-girl, I want the pretty fire-girl!" Motochika stormed out and his father followed soon after.

Kasuga exhaled finally. So her fate was decided. She wouldn't be a glorified whore, she would be an honorable killer. But even at seven years old, she knew the lesser of two evils was still evil.

* * *

The Koga clan was so much different from her home in Sanuki. Sarutobi and Fuuma had taken her far from the island of Shikoku, to the northern inland prefecture of Kai. It was strange to be so land-locked when she was used to being able to look in any direction and see the sea on the horizon.

Now, there were only mountains and trees.

So many trees.

The Koga clan was a tightly knit village of five main families. The heads of the Sarutobi and Fuuma families, she had already met, and in fact, she was now an adopted child of the Sarutobi family. There was also the Kusanagi, Yasakani, and Yata families. She was immediately warned of the Iga clan on the other side of the mountains, especially of the Kirigakure and Hanzo families.

She couldn't sleep after Sarutobi left her alone.

It was only half because she was having trouble adjusted to this sudden new life.

The other half was her new brother in law.

"How come you're not asleep, Kasuga-chan?" He had red-brown hair and brown hair and a mouth that never shut up.

"Waiting."

"For what?" He was laying on the tatami mat, looking up at her as she sat on her knees.

"Not what."

He sat up a little. "So, who?"

"My father's retainer... he'll come looking for me."

"Huh?"

"He's the only person I have left..." Kasuga looked down at her lap. "He's supposed to protect me now that my parents and my neesama... my neesama..." Her little throat closed up and her eyes stung with tears. "Neesama..."

"Kasuga-chan." He sat up fully, patting her hair. "It's okay to cry if you want to."

"Leave me alone, Sasuke." She pushed his hand away. "I'm leaving as soon as Hisahide-san finds out where I am."

"He's not going to..."

"He will! Your stupid father kidnapped me!"

"My dad saved you."

"Your father killed my parents!" Kasuga buried her face in her hands. "Hisahide-san will find me... he will... and we'll go back to Shikoku and rebuild the Miyoshi clan... and kill the Chosokabe..."

Sasuke shook his head. "My dad could've let something a lot worse happen to you."

"Your father could have let my parents live. That's not worse."

Sasuke was dumbfounded. He fell quiet, the only remaining sounds in the room were Kasuga's sniffling.

Hours seemed to pass until everything was silent and Kasuga stood up. She started walking toward the door.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm going to make it easier for Hisahide-san to find me." She opened the door.

Sasuke shot up, grabbing her around the waist. She shrieked, and he clapped a hand over her mouth, dragging her back to the tatami mat. She struggled fiercely, kicking her legs, the thumps of her heels against the floor echoing through the mostly empty room. She scratched at his arms, tossing her head. She bit his hand, and he let go in surprise.

She scrambled away from him, but in a flash, he was in front of her, shaking his hand out. "Kasuga-chan, you can't leave."

"I'm leaving, Sasuke. You can't stop me."

"I... I can. I don't want to hurt you, Kasuga-chan. Please don't make me," he said.

She tried to run past him, but he grabbed her around her thighs and picked her up over his shoulder. She weighed nothing to the almost ten year old Sasuke, she was small even for a girl her age, and was soft from being pampered like the daughter of a lord should be.

Hanging over Sasuke's shoulder, she noticed a dark figure leaning against the wall, just beyond the door frame. She realized that even if she made it past Sasuke, his father was out in the hall, ready for her. She wasn't going to escape... Hisahide-san wasn't going to find her. There was no Sanuki to go to home to. She cried.

Sasuke sat her down on the tatami mat and pulled her into a hug. She cried and Sasuke petted her hair until they both slumped over onto the mat and somehow, almost miraculously, fell asleep.

Sarutobi shook his head, smiling sadly. He should have heeded Fuuma's warning about adopting a little girl, but... he didn't regret it. He hadn't seen Sasuke sleep so soundly in years.

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End of chapter one.  
_Hopefully this and my other two SB fics will make it to the end._  
_Also, about the Koga and the Iga: they were two rival schools of ninja teachings. Kotaro Fuuma was said to come from one, and Hattori Hanzo from the other. The relationship between Sasuke Sarutobi and Saizo Kirigakure is similar. Tahdah. And Kusanagi, Yasakani, and Yata are the names of the three sacred treasures of Japan (the sword, the magatama and the mirror). Whoo for references. I win, bitches. Review me._


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: _This fic is going to jump over a lot of things because honestly, it would be kind of boring if I did it year by year, everything Kasuga, Sasuke and Kotaro learned, blahblahblah. So we're cutting to the interesting parts. I hate being bored._

_

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**Don't Let the Wind Follow**  
**Chapter Two - Bind

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**

There were more boys than girls in the Koga clan, but every sister was older than her brother. There were no husbands and wives. No complete families. Only family name's, of which Kasuga had none. From the moment she was introduced to the other children, they knew she was different. There was something wrong with her. She was the LITTLE sister of the Sarutobi family, but she had no last name. She was DIFFERENT. Even the way she looked was wrong, whoever had seen a girl with blond hair? Even the reds and browns of the Koga clan were through the careful breeding of the clan members.

Kasuga was an ANOMALY.

Anomalies weren't welcomed among the shinobi.

But Sasuke took it in stride. "You're special. You're my imouto-chan. I'm the only one who has one. You're the only one with a niisan."

"You're not my niisan."

Kasuga kept to herself, stayed close to Sasuke and Kotaro because she knew that they were the gazelles and the other children were the lions... and the lions pounced on the littlest gazelle as soon as it strayed from the herd.

She trained with Sasuke and Kotaro to pass the time. Each day that Hisahide didn't come for her, she accepted her new life a little more. It was disheartening, the training was a welcome distraction from her thoughts. She was smart, she picked up on things quickly. Even Fuuma was surprised that in only six months, she was ready to join the other girls.

Kasuga dreaded it. The other girls were older, were bigger, knew more, Sasuke and Kotaro wouldn't be there to protect her and as much as she didn't like her brother in law and his best friend, she knew she needed them to survive.

It was like being thrown into the deep end to learn to swim.

It only instilled a fear of drowning.

There were three other girls in the group. The daughter of the Kusanagi family, Kyoko, and the twin daughters of the Yata family, Maki and Chizuru.

The first day, they ignored Kasuga. The tension in the air made it hard for her to breathe, but somehow, she got through the day, and made it home. Even Sasuke was suspicious when she said that nothing had happened.

The next day, the tension was relieved with action.

Kasuga didn't miss the slight nod that Yata-san gave to the other girls before she turned around and took a few steps away. She swallowed, her eyes darting to the other girls, who were standing up...

In a sudden panic, an unrelenting wave of realization, Kasuga tried to bolt.

Kyoko was in front of her in a flash, the Yata twins were grabbing her arms. She kicked one of them, she still couldn't tell them apart, but the other took the opening Kasuga left to trip her.

Face down in the grass, she felt someone grab her hair. She could only see straw sandals and tabi socks.

Pulling her head away was painful. Only a few locks spilled across her shoulders, missing the tearing blade of a kunai.

As one of the girls lost their grip, a fist full of Kasuga's long blond hair, Kasuga's face bumped against the ground. She felt a trickle of blood run down toward her lip, but all she saw was the mass of hair like a bundle of soft straw that Kyoko dropped beside her.

She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, wiped her nose with her wrist. A red smear. She looked around.

She was alone.

She sat there for hours, until night fell. Until Sasuke came looking for her. There was dried blood on her lip and the bundle of hair had all but been blown away by the wind.

Enough time for her to think of why they had done it. Why Yata-san let them.

She was a distraction to the class. She needed to be punished for that, the distraction needed to be removed. So the lions had to make the leap at the gazelle. She had to learn to swim.

"Kasuga-chan..." Sasuke knelt down beside her. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

Sasuke hung his head. "I'm really sorry I wasn't here, I'm supposed to protect you, I'm your niisan..."

"You're _not_ my niisan." She looked up at him, glaring. "You're _not._ You won't ever be my _NIISAN_, Sasuke, you're stupid, I hate you, I want my Sayaka-neesama, she was never mean like those girls and she always protected me better than you could, give her back!"

"I didn't take your Sayaka-nee..."

"Give her back or I'll hate you forever, Sasuke!"

"I can't give her back, Kasuga-chan, I wish I could-"

"... I hate you, Sasuke. I'll always hate you."

Kasuga stood up and ran. Sasuke chased after her.

But she ran back to the Sarutobi home. She saw the guilty look in Sarutobi's eyes, the one of someone who'd done something he didn't want to, but there was no apology. No offering of condolences...

because it was just hair. It was just her hair, it was just her life, it was just the way things were going to be.

She slammed the door to her room shut.

"Dad, she said she hates me."

"So?" He raised a brow.

"I don't want Kasuga-chan to hate me." Sasuke kept rubbing his eyes, ready to lie about what was wrong with them.

"Do you hate her?" Sarutobi asked.

" 'Course I don't hate Kasuga-chan!" Sasuke scoffed.

Sarutobi nodded and smiled. "You still want to protect her, even when she says terrible things?"

"Especially when she says those things!" Sasuke replied, his shoulders setting. "She doesn't mean them, does she?"

"Does she?" Sarutobi stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"No, she doesn't mean it. She's just sad about her hair... and her neesama," Sasuke said, then bit his lip. But there was no deluding hopefulness in his voice, just honesty and understanding.

Sarutobi pushed off from the wall and went to go change for bed, wondering if he was a terrible person for cutting Kasuga's attachment to the world and making Sasuke become attached to the world for the same reason. They would both become great shinobi.

"I kinda like your hair that way, Kasuga-chan."

Kasuga was quiet. It was their break day, and they spent it as they always did. Sitting under the tree by the lake, for the pure convenience of having a tree to climb, a lake to swim in, and grass to play tag across.

"Don't you like it, Kotaro?"

Kotaro shrugged, picking up a rock and skipping it across the water. It made four hops and sank, but the ripples remained.

"I think it's cute and you don't have to spend so much time brushing it," Sasuke said. Kasuga reached up to touch the long parts, running her fingers through them, combing them. "Here," he said, gently taking one and starting to braid it. She watched. He did the other. "You can see your whole face now... and you know what else?" He reached behind himself, picking a flower. It was just a peony, but it was the perfect size to tuck behind her ear. "You can do that now, you had too much hair before."

Kotaro rolled his eyes.

Kasuga smiled a little.

He felt brave enough to ask, "You... still hate me, Kasuga-chan?"

She shook her head.

"So I can be your niisan?"

She shook her head again.

"Then can we at least be friends?" He dared to get hopeful.

She pulled the flower from her hair and looked at it for a moment. "Okay. We can be friends, Sasuke."

* * *

_End of chapter._

_Yeah, I just explained why Kasuga has crazy hair that makes no sense. I bawww'd a little while writing this. It's sad. Let me know if you bawww'd too._


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